A Waterford Township pastor died of a heart attack Sunday night after apparently removing snow at his home in Genesee County.

Other deaths were possibly tied to snow shoveling, and with potentially deadly cold arriving, officials are warning people to be careful outside.

Marc Dalton, pastor of Lakecrest Baptist Church in the 30 block of Airport Road, died at his home in Goodrich, shortly after arriving home from the church’s evening service, according to the church’s website. Friends of his family reported on social media that he’d been shoveling snow.

“He was taken to Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc but had already gone to meet the one he had served faithfully for 35 years,” said a notice of the man’s death.

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Three other reported deaths all followed shoveling snow, though that may not have been the primary cause of death.

A man died in Orion Township around 1 p.m. Sunday on Browning Drive. Officials believe his death was weather related. He died of hypertension and cardiovascular disease, investigators said.

In Pontiac around 5 p.m., a woman who was shoveling her driveway on James Street died, but investigators later said her death was unrelated – she died of a brain aneurism and heart issues, officials reported.

A similar incident happened to a Detroit man, who was also outside before his death. He died around 9:20 p.m. of multiple causes – including hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity – at Providence Park Hospital in Novi, just 13 minutes after he arrived.

Reports from hospitals, though, showed that problems related to the cold were not widespread.

Across the state and county, residents dug out and braced for the deep freeze on Monday morning. Before noon Monday, several school districts, including Rochester, Troy, and Birmingham, had called off classes for Tuesday, when the high was expected to hover around zero degrees. Wind chills were expected to be in as low as -30 degrees.

In northern Michigan, two people died Monday morning after their small-engine plane crashed after takeoff in a flight that was bound for Troy’s airport, The Associated Press reported.

Some main roadways were clear Monday morning due to the light traffic as most stayed home, but subdivisions and neighborhoods saw deep snow on the streets. Readers reported some major roads were difficult to travel.

Bob Piggott said, “I was amazed as to how good the main roads were this morning. After the amount of snow we got, I didn’t think I would get to my office.”

Troy Diederich said: “No, plowing them is making it worse; it’s turning to ice.”

Heidi Engler wrote, “I have no idea how the main roads are, because my residential street has not been plowed and I cannot get out.”

Arctic chill

The cold, though, quickly became the primary concern.

National Weather Service meteorologist Rich Pollman said the Detroit and Flint area will come close to breaking record low temperatures by Tuesday.

If the high remains below zero on Tuesday, it will be the first time this has occurred at Detroit since 1994, and only the sixth time in history.

Tuesday’s high will be “nearly zero or just above zero,” Pollman said.

However, the windchill will remain between 25 to 30 degrees below zero in the day Tuesday, following similar wind chills Monday night.

“For the day (in the year), they are going to be (record lows),” Pollman said. “For the daily records for Tuesday in Detroit, (Tuesday) morning’s record is five below zero. The record below Monday is seven below zero ... (records) are certainly in jeopardy.”

At the Detroit National Weather Service office at Metro Airport, the coldest actual temperature ever recorded was -24 on Dec. 24, 1872. The second coldest temperatures in Detroit was -21 on Jan. 21, 1984.

Driving was and will continue to be a concern. Spin outs in the snow were to be replaced by dead car batteries, too.

AAA Michigan assisted 1,200 drivers on Monday. From Jan. 1 through late afternoon Jan. 3, the agency assisted more than 13,500 motorists, with spinouts, vehicles in ditches and dead batteries among the winter-related issues.

Dangerous weather

A heavy snow forced many to undergo the difficult task of cleaning off driveways and vehicles.

Since Saturday, the county has been slammed with an abundance of snow, with northern Oakland County seeing the worst.

The Emergency Center at Beaumont Hospital, Troy reports one fall and one heart attack (nonfatal) while shoveling so far, said hospital spokesman Robert Orleib.

Staff also treated one cardiac arrest during snow removal from the previous snowfall.

As of early Monday afternoon, the Emergency Centers in Royal Oak and Grosse Pointe have seen “very little in the way of weather-related injuries. People are heeding the warnings of the media and National Weather Service,” said Orleib.

No unusual injuries were reported Monday morning at Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital in Commerce Township, said Sarah Collica, a spokeswoman for Detroit-based Detroit Medical Center, which operates the facility.

“Commerce isn’t seeing anything out of the norm, which is good,” she said.

At the DMC Surgery Hospital in Madison Heights, which has an emergency room, one patient was treated for minor back pain from shoveling snow, but the patient was discharged and asked to make a follow up appointment.

The health system, which operates six hospitals in Wayne and Oakland counties, has had a few frostbite cases in Detroit within the last week, but none at the Oakland County sites.

“I’ve been checking pretty frequently the last week or so, too,” she said. “Luckily, we haven’t had anything that severe.”

At St. Joseph Mercy Oakland, a couple of patients were treated for minor snow blower injuries, said Heidi Press Carr, a spokeswoman for the Pontiac hospital. The patients were treated and discharged.

Across Michigan

In Flat Rock, Michigan, a resident died in the first wave of the weekend’s wintry weather, after he tried to push his car out of the driveway.

Police detective Glen Hoffman said the man died Friday due to the cold weather and snow.

He said an elderly man’s vehicle got stuck in the driveway and he appeared to have been trying to push it out.

Hoffman said the man was with family Thursday but they couldn’t reach him by phone on Friday. He said the family found him laying next to the vehicle.

Police are asking residents to use extreme caution with the extremely cold weather ahead.

The names of the two people killed in the Monday morning plane crash were not immediately released. One was they pilot.

The plane, a single-engine Mooney M20, crashed just after 7 a.m. takeoff from Boyne City Airport in Charlevoix County, about 45 miles northeast of Traverse City, headed to Oakland-Troy Airport, The Associated Press reported.

WPBN/WTOM-TV and the Petoskey News-Review report the crash occurred several hundred yards from a road, reachable on foot or snowmobile.

Undersheriff Chuck Vondra told the newspaper the plane was broken into many pieces.

And travelers using Amtrak’s train service from Pontiac to Chicago endured an eight-hour delay Sunday night into Monday morning, according to The Associated Press.

The train stopped in southwest Michigan after engine troubles occurred due to the cold temperatures already arriving on the near Chicago and in western Michigan.

The 200 passengers did have heat, toilets and lights while they waited to be connected to another train engine.

About the Authors

John Turk covers the police beat and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners for The Oakland Press. He is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University. Reach the author at john.turk@oakpress.com
or follow John on Twitter: @jrturk.